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Joy is the name my friend gave to my fourth child. When I was 42 and pregnant, she would pat my tummy and say, “When I pray for this baby, I call her baby Joy.” And so we had prayed for baby “Joy” so often throughout my pregnancy that that became her real name.
With such a name, of course, we searched out the original meaning and celebrated her all of her life. The etymology of the word joy really means “rejoice” in other words, take the opportunity to choose joy, to see God’s goodness through the grid of your life, to grow in relationship to bringing joy to others. Joy is a fruit of the spirit.
Many of you have said you love hearing Joy on my podcast, so today we speak together about the realties of choosing joy amidst the dark and demanding days of our own lives through the years.
Wendall Barry said,
”Rejoice, though you have considered all the facts.”
Maybe it’s having a daughter named Joy, or maybe I just wanted to learn how to face life every day, a determination to see God’s light every day, in every person, and to learn in every circumstance how I could pursue His goodness.
It wasn’t because I was good at it, but I desperately did not want to live depressed, overcome by the many difficult challenges that came my way. It was a choice to water the ways of joy so that my life would grow in that direction. What are you watering in your life?
Consider all the facts, be sad when life is sad, but then determine what kind of legacy of faith you want to have? Rejoice.
Interestingly, when the angel came to marry and said, “Hail, Mary!” The word hail actually meant, Rejoice, Mary. Be filled with Joy.
To choose to cultivate joy is throughout the whole Bible as a goal of our faith.
To dwell in God’s lovingkindness by faith and to become a person who always brings light into the darkness because of your hope of who He is and what is ahead. Or remaining in the darkness of despair. God’s Spirit fills us with Joy when we allow the Spirit to carry us.
Cultivating habits that sustain our lives and fill us with joy is one way we have learned to move forward every day, to find how to make life sustainable. Join Joy and me as we share some of our thoughts.
What are habits and rhythms that help you daily to cultivate joy in the moments of your life? I would love to know.
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